HARD WORK, OR THE SCULPTURAL WORK OF ANNETTE STREYL

Stone, wool and architecture. Leaving aside the pedestals and the metal frameworks, these are the three basic elements used by the artist Annette Streyl (born in Münster in 1968, now living and working in Hamburg). One merit of the particular use Annette Streyl makes of wool – in combination with representative architecture – is that it emancipates this material from its connotations with handicrafts and jacquards. Annette Streyl produces machine-knitted scale models of buildings. All the buildings are reduced to a 1:100 scale and are as detailed as if they were done in stone. To take an example: even though it is knitted in wool, her Reichstag Berlin (2000) displays an eye for sculptural vocabulary: scale, relief, sheen, rhythm, patina, volume and mass. This interest is articulated even more clearly in the different ‘aggregate states’ she imposes on her models: sculpturally formal like a real architectural model; amorphously shapeless as if hung on a clothesline; or neatly folded like a garment.

Excerpt from a text of Philip van Cauteren